June 24, 2014

Teri alerted me to this latest White Horse Inn and the quote below. If you still have children at home, I’d encourage you to listen to what Mike Horton and T. David Gordon have to say. Passing the torch on to our children is a challenge. I think parents are most effective when they live the truth at home, and when they routinely worship with their children in a church that preaches the Word, and will love and pray for the parents and children of the church.

“… Not only are we not keeping our youth, as it were, which is the great fear; not only is it not working, but insofar as that they see any pattern, the curious thing is: the churches that do not have big youth programs, or even any youth program, are retaining their young people through their twenties at a higher rate than the churches with big youth programs. … [Statisticians have] demonstrated it! And at first that seems counterintuitive. ‘What? You mean we have a $75,000 budget in our church for a youth director, and all the bells and the whistles, and we’re getting nothing for it?’ And the answer is ‘of course, you can see why!’ Because Christianity is not all about me. It’s all about Christ, and my serving Christ. And so, if for six or seven years in the youth program, we throw pizza, and Pepsi, and movies at someone, and then at some point, magically he hits 21 and we say, ‘Now, we want you to come out for the Church work party, and clean the gutters out, or do this, that, and the other, or keep nursery,’ he goes, ‘Woah, woah, woah, where’s my pizza? Where’s my Pepsi? Where’s my movies?’”

December 26, 2013

Read this. As a parent, you are responsible for locking down Internet access. Trust me, your children will find the wrong places to go if YOU don’t guard the gate. And, the sins dabbled in now might very well haunt them the rest of their lives. Sowing now results in a harvest later. Do your best to keep your children safe.

December 2, 2013

November 26, 2013

I appreciate this piece by Tullian. It is about a husband who announces that he is going to leave his wife. The wife doesn’t react but instead just keeps loving her husband. In the end, the husband returned physically and emotionally. Even though this is about a husband leaving his wife, the principle Tullian communicates might be applied in our lives at least on a weekly basis. Not that our spouses routinely want to leave us (hopefully). But, all of our mates have difficult days when they can’t seem to love us the way we’d like. The same principle illustrated in this piece needs to be applied in our marriages and lives. As we respond graciously, those we love will eventually come back.

Stephen Altrogge suggests that we should get rid of the word “should.” I’m not sure I completely buy what he’s suggesting.

Finally, I’ve said before that parents have the primary responsibility of discipling their children. This often happens best not as our children are whisked away to youth ministries but rather as they worship and serve with their parents in church. I realize that this only works for children whose parents attend church.